Three stranded porpoises on the Solway Firth, United Kingdom

One of the animals was seen “thrashing about” and the other two were at first believed to be dead, near Torduff Point, on the 26 of August 2019.

The operation of assistance to the porpoises was done by British Divers Marine Life Rescue and it took several hours because the animals were far from the water and the mud was turning into quicksand, being potentially dangerous for the medics too. The BDMLR team succesfully refloated the adults but the juvenile kept turning back and getting stranded, even if freed directly in deeper waters. The final decision after multiple attempts was to humanely put to sleep the calf, and an autopsy will be carried out later to establish the cause of the incident.

This is one of the really few record of mass strandings of porpoises collected until now.

Two of the porpoises were refloated but the youngest one had to be put down.

For further informations: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-49481841